Bethany Firth motivated as ever for Para Swimming World Championships

By Oli Dickson Jefford, Sportsbeat

Bethany Firth insists she is as motivated as ever ahead of her latest quest for global glory at the Para Swimming World Championships in Manchester.

The Northern Irish star, 27, will be in action this week with friends and family travelling across the Irish Sea to cheer her on.

Last year Firth won five gold medals in her S14 classification at the World Championships in Madeira, adding to a medal collection which includes six Paralympic titles.

But she admits that as she approaches a new competition, it is a desire to continuously improve at every stage of her career that keeps her searching for even more success.

She said: “Motivation is what keeps you going, and if I don’t have something to push me on or to get better, then I wouldn’t enjoy the sport and wouldn’t be in it.

“I do set my goals every day, every time I go to the pool I have something to work on and I feel like it gives me that sense of achievement, it makes me feel good, it makes me feel like I’m moving forward.

“My thing with medals is that people tell me ‘you’ve won these medals, you’ve done this and that’ but I’m always just looking for the next thing. I want to get quicker, I want to get faster.

“People think things are impossible, and I want to be one of those people that people go ‘we never thought that time would ever come, look at what that person has done.’

“Medals are amazing but even going into this competition, I can’t control what the medal outcome is going to be. I can only control being super fast and being at my best, if that gets me a bronze or gets me a gold, that’s it. I don’t really think about the medals as such.”

169 world champions will be crowned across seven days of racing, with over 500 swimmers from 67 nations set to compete in the newly refurbished Manchester Aquatics Centre pool.

Firth will be among the most experienced athletes in action, having medalled at a World Championships for the first time a decade ago.

While that experience is something she wants to work to her advantage, she also wants to inspire younger teammates and competitors.

“I think it’s always good to have experience and I have been in this sport a long time, so I know what works for me,” she added.

“I also want to be a role model for the ones coming up, and show them that there’s different ways of doing different things. I do something this way and it might work for them, might not work for them.

“Because we are such a big team and we do have lots of young ones, I really want to be an inspiration for them. I can’t compete forever and we need a new generation to take over the sport.

“I was once a young girl looking up at all the other girls. You have that dream and I think it’s so good that when your dreams are a reality, you can talk to these younger athletes and just be with them.”

British Swimming is the national governing body for swimming, diving, para-swimming, artistic swimming, high diving and water polo. To follow our divers and other athletes at the World Championships in Fukuoka, make sure to follow us @britishswimming on Instagram and Twitter or head to www.britishswimming.org